Affiliate disclosure

In one sentence

Open Assay earns a commission when a researcher purchases from a supplier through a link on this site — and our rankings and test results are not affected by those commissions.

How we make money

Some of the suppliers we review operate affiliate programs. When you click a link on an Open Assay supplier page and subsequently purchase from that supplier, we receive a commission — typically 10% to 20% of the sale, depending on the supplier's program.

These commissions are how Open Assay pays for editorial work, independent testing, hosting, and operations. The alternative — paid advertising from suppliers, or supplier-funded reviews — would compromise editorial independence, so we don't do it.

What the commission does not change

• Rankings are decided first. Our supplier leaderboard ranks every supplier by objective criteria (third-party testing transparency, operational reliability, community sentiment). Affiliate partnership status is not an input to the rank.
• We publish failing test results on affiliate partners. If a supplier we link to fails our independent testing, the failure is published on their supplier page, and their overall rank is adjusted downward.
• We cover non-partners. Suppliers who do not have affiliate programs, or whom we have chosen not to partner with, are still reviewed in the leaderboard.
• Suppliers cannot buy favorable coverage. No supplier has ever been offered and no supplier has ever paid Open Assay in exchange for a better review, higher placement, or removal of unfavorable findings.

How we identify affiliate links

On any page with affiliate links, you will see:

1. A banner at the top stating that Open Assay earns commissions from links on the page.
2. An inline notice next to any "Where researchers buy" block.
3. A link in the footer back to this page.

Disclosure placement standards

We follow these rules about where and how disclosures appear, based on the FTC's 2023 revised Endorsement Guides:

• Above the first affiliate link. The page-level disclosure banner is placed before any product link a reader could click — not only at the bottom of the page.
• In the same language as the content. No English-only banner on a translated page.
• Not in hover text, not in a tooltip, not hidden behind a link. The disclosure is rendered as on-page text, in the same font size as body text.
• Repeated on long pages. Peptide pages longer than one screen repeat a smaller disclosure above any "Where researchers buy" block.
• Not deprioritized on mobile. The disclosure banner is part of the mobile layout, not collapsed behind a "more" toggle.

Current affiliate partners

As of the last-updated date above, Open Assay has no paid affiliate partnerships in effect. When partnerships do go live, each one will be listed here with:

• The supplier's name and public URL
• The start date of the partnership
• The approximate commission rate or rate range
• Whether the supplier holds any equity stake or advisory role with Open Assay staff (always zero by policy — listed for verifiability)

If we ever terminate a partnership, the entry moves to a "Former partners" section with the end date and retains its disclosure history.

What we do NOT accept

• Paid placement in rankings. No supplier has been offered, and no supplier would be offered, a higher leaderboard position in exchange for commission, payment, or any other consideration.
• Sponsored content that reads as editorial. Anything sponsored by a supplier would be conspicuously labeled as such and excluded from evidence-tier ratings and from the ranking algorithm.
• Gifted products passed off as independently purchased. Every assay we publish identifies whether the sample was blind-purchased (independently, anonymously) or Golden-sample (vendor-provided with disclosure). Golden-sample results are labeled separately and do not feed the composite ranking.
• Prohibited-substance advertising. We decline affiliate relationships with suppliers who sell peptides the FDA has placed on the 503A Category 2 list (currently including BPC-157 and TB-500) for US delivery. Coverage of those suppliers continues; affiliate economics do not.

FTC compliance

This disclosure is designed to satisfy the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255), as revised by the FTC in June 2023, which require:

• Clear and conspicuous disclosure of any material connection between an endorser and a product seller (Section 255.5).
• Disclosures that are "unavoidable" to consumers and not tucked away in fine print, hover text, or post-click pages.
• Disclosures that match the platform — visible in static form on a web page, not dependent on a user choosing to reveal them.

Non-compliance carries potential civil penalties under Section 5 of the FTC Act and, as of the 2023 revision, increased individual-endorser liability. We have read the FTC's FAQ on the Endorsement Guides and designed this page accordingly. Formal legal review is pending; if anything here misstates the rule, corrections will be published in the corrections log.

If you think we got something wrong

Concerns about our disclosure practices, questions about a specific partnership, or a tip that we failed to disclose a material connection should be sent to editorial@openassay.org. A substantiated complaint that we failed to disclose will result in a correction log entry plus a retroactive disclosure on the affected pages.